It’s been a long time since I listened to one track on repeat over and over and over again. I think the first time was in college, pulling an all-nighter to finish a report for a speech I had to give in History 102, taking Vivarin (first and last time) and listening to David Bowie’s "Heroes" (the full version) over and over and over and over and over. What a night. Needless to say, my speech was really really weird.
All the speeches given up to that point had been really dry, and since the grade was half from the professor, and half from student evaluations, I figured I should make my speech kind of funny, you know? So I wrote in all these "jokes". Let me be the first to tell you that jokes written in the middle of an all-nighter on Vivarin are not going to be funny. At best they will be odd. So I gave my speech, red-eyed and fried, and babbling incoherently about how the German soldiers of World War One wore funny hats. I can remember thinking it was strange that no-one was laughing at the funny bits. My friend PatH who was in the class later told me that it wasn’t making any sense.
Sure enough, when I had slept and re-read my speech, it was a mess.
Lately, I’ve been listening to "The Low Murderer is Out at Night" on repeat 1 and it’s been great. The song is kind of a mini-suite, going through several movements, each of which adds on the previous one.
Initially it’s a bit like Air, with an acoustic guitar groove and bubbling electronics. Around 2 minutes in, a distorted guitar and funkier beat get added. At the 3 minute mark a sweet Floyd-esque solo comes sweeping in and I feel the presence of JWilmeth is hanging out with me. So good. I once read this description of a track by Country Joe and the Fish and it said something like "at the 2 minute mark, suddenly the walls begin to melt." That’s how it feels, the wall begin to melt. Then the vocal sample, and the dirrrty synth at 5:15 and we’re in it deep, you know?
Loving it.
(Low Motion Disco – The Low Murderer Is Out At Night)
[audio:Low_Motion.mp3]
[via]
Is it Spring where you are?
What’s interesting is that while there are tons of mashups using Beatles vocals, and tons using Doors vocals, there don’t seem to be that many using Rolling Stones vocals. I think this might be because the Doors and Beatles ones come from re-mastering into 5.1 sound that isolates the vocals, and then savvy remixers can grab the vocal track. Maybe the Rolling Stones haven’t been re-mastered into 5.1?
Panda Bear of Animal Collective released a solo album last year that hit the top ten in many many critics’ best of 2007 lists. And the album is kind of great…all Beach Boys gone psychedelic freak-out but still sunshine-y. I especially love the first track, Comfy In Nautica…it’s like a weird gentle industrial-style rhythm with a Brian Wilson sunshine vocal, I love it…
Welllll well well.